Overview

This instalment of ERS Vision Live featured an expert panel, co-chaired by Dr Anand Shah and Prof. Dr Eva Van Braeckel, discussing antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

The expert panellists discussed key topics, including:

• AMR from the patient perspective;
• Value of international collaboration and cystic fibrosis;
• Novel therapeutics to mitigate AMR in bronchiectasis and beyond.

Co-Chairs

Dr Anand Shah

• Anand is a consultant respiratory physician in complex lung infection at the Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK and an honorary clinical lecturer at the Centre of Bacterial Resistance Biology at Imperial College London, UK.

• He is Co-chair of the AMR-Lung Clinical Research Collaboration with over 300 members globally, and Co-director of the Imperial College Network of Excellence in Fungal Science.

• He has an academic interest in understanding the impact of bacterial and fungal antimicrobial resistance in chronic lung disease and leads a number of clinical studies within these fields.

Prof. Dr Eva Van Braeckel

• Eva is a respiratory and infectious disease physician at Ghent University Hospital, Belgium, where she heads the Department of Respiratory Medicine.

• She is Professor of Respiratory infections at Ghent University, and PI of the Respiratory Infection and Defense Lab (RIDL).

• She has a special interest in respiratory infections, including aspergillosis, non-tuberculous mycobacteria, and cystic fibrosis.

• At present, she is the Chair of the Chronic Pulmonary Aspergillosis Network (CPAnet) and the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Task Force on the CPA clinical practice guideline update.

Speakers

Dr Effy Papadopoulou

• Effy recently completed her residency in respiratory medicine at the Pulmonology Department, "G. Papanikolaou" General Hospital of Thessaloniki, Greece.
• She holds an MSc in Research Methodology in Medicine and Health Sciences and has developed a clinical and research interest in respiratory infections.

• As an ERS early-career member, she has participated actively in the AMR-Lung Patient survey, capturing the AMR burden from the perspective of people with chronic respiratory diseases.

• Apart from ERS Clinical Research Collaboration projects, she is also involved as an early-career member in the ERS Clinical Practice Guidelines Methodology Network.

Dr Merete Bridget Long

• Merete is a research fellow in respiratory science at the University of Dundee, UK, working in the laboratory of Prof. James D. Chalmers.

• She earned her PhD from the University of Sheffield in 2020, where her research focused on neutrophil-mediated epithelial inflammation in COPD.

• For her work on neutrophils in COVID-19, she was awarded the 2022 British Thoracic Society/British Association for Lung Research (BTS/BALR) Young Investigator Award.

• Merete's current research seeks to identify novel therapeutic targets and investigate the immunomodulatory effects of existing and emerging treatments in chronic lung diseases, including bronchiectasis.

• Using multi-omic and functional immune profiling within the context of clinical studies and trials, her translational research bridges laboratory discovery and clinical application to improve patient outcomes in respiratory disease.

Associate Prof. Andrea Gramegna

• Andrea is an associate professor at Milan University, Italy, and consultant in pulmonology at the IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico in Milan, where he leads the local adult cystic fibrosis centre and bronchiectasis programme.

• As a researcher, he has contributed to clinical and translational research focused on chronic inflammation in bronchiectasis and the role of neutrophil elastase.

• He has a particular interest in age-related complications in cystic fibrosis and the significant impact of new cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator modulator drugs in adult cystic fibrosis care.

• He is the current Chair of the ERS working group on adult cystic fibrosis (Group 10.3), and he has recently been elected as Director of the Standards of Care of the European Cystic Fibrosis Society.